


Cicadas

by beenomorph



Series: new and old [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 02:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10584363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beenomorph/pseuds/beenomorph
Summary: Kallo smiles despite himself, laughing as well, and Ryder loves how easy it is to infect Kallo with laughter, thinks about how he’d laugh til his lungs gave out if it meant Kallo was laughing with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the tragedy of our era is that kallo wasn't a romance option and we didnt get a cute tempest bridge romance scene. anyways

“Do you want to sit with me?” Ryder asked, innocuous as ever, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the pilot from where he sat on the floor, dangling his legs over the edge of command platform, leaning against the galaxy map interface.

He liked to sit up there, sometimes-- the bridge was cool, quiet aside from Kallo and Suvi’s chatting, and he found it relaxing to watch the ship work, to feel it move, to see the stars blink against their inky backdrop. He wasn’t always alone-- he’d been joined on occasion by Jaal, who pointed out planets and stars and told old stories of Angaran history; by Cora, who like him, needed moments such as these to clear her head; by Suvi, who he would convince to sit beside him while she talked about rock formation and crop yield. He knew Kallo wouldn’t like leaving the helm to the auto-pilot for the sake of small talk, but with Suvi busy in the galley trying her latest Angaran recipe, it seemed natural to offer.

“I _am_ sitting with you,” Kallo ventures, not rudely, raising his gaze from the glaring controls and squinting as his eyes adjusted to the change in light.

“You know what I mean,” he laughed, turning away. Kallo watched his attention drift back to the Tempest’s observatory window, not knowing exactly what it was Ryder was laughing at, but smiling anyways at the sound, satisfaction blooming in his chest at having caused it.

“It’s weird,” Ryder says with a sigh, drawing Kallo rather suddenly out of his thoughts, “Not recognizing any of the constellations.”

Kallo nodded in agreement, leaning back in his seat. “I do get a little confused, from time to time, he admitted, “Finding myself plotting routes based on old Milky Way charts, cross referencing our location with Milky Way star formations…” Ryder looks over his shoulder once more, that lopsided grin of his dimpling his cheeks,

“I guess having a flawless memory has its drawbacks, huh?” he teases, and Kallo chuckles, shaking his head.

“I _suppose,”_ he says, in mock resignation, drawing another quiet chuckle from Ryder, who shakes his head once more and turns back to the stars in front of him. Kallo paused, simply staring for a moment. Ryder’s legs swung, his fingers drumming against the floor along with a song the salarian cannot hear, the gentle bobbing of his head sending his curls bouncing, silhouetted against starlight. It was a moment worth committing to memory- not that he had any choice in the matter.

Kallo sets the ship to autopilot, and rises from his chair.

“You lived on Sur’Kesh, right?” Ryder asks suddenly, voice distant, not even shifting his gaze from the window as Kallo sits beside him, crossing his long legs. “What’s something you miss about it?”

“That’s one way to start a conversation,” Kallo responds, amusement clear in his voice. “Nostalgic, are we?” Ryder shrugs, this time turning to face his pilot, smile unrepentant.

Kallo blinks, pauses, thinks.

“The sky,” he says, finally, gaze dropping down to where he fidgeted with the Initiative patch on his shoulder, “Swimming. There was a lake by my family home, I remember visiting, five of my brothers and I would go at night. We’d always stay out too late,” he laughed, quietly, eyes closed in memory, “Because they’d ask me endlessly about the stars and constellations, the stories behind them.” Kallo looked away, suddenly, “That and tupo berries. Fresh ones, not the freeze-dried ones we have here.”

“Tupo berries?” Ryder’s nose wrinkled, “Like Tupari? Yuck,”

Kallo gasped, “How could you! Tupari is my favorite drink, I had a whole crate of it specially shipped to Andromeda and everything--”

“I’m sorry, Kallo, I hate to break it to you, but Paragade is _so_ much better--”

“ _Paragade?”_ Kallo laughed outright, crossing his arms with an indignant huff, “Only losers drink Paragade.”

Ryder rolls his eyes before turning back towards the stars, crooked smile wide on his face.

“You know what I miss most about Earth?”

“I hope it isn’t Paragade,” Kallo jokes, hiding his grin behind his knees as he draws them up to his chest. Ryder laughs again, rolls his eyes again,

“You know, weirdly enough it isn't? I think it’s gotta be the bugs,” He grins at the way Kallo’s face crinkles at that, “You ever heard of lightning bugs? Fireflies?”

“I can’t say that I have,” Kallo doesn’t try to hide his displeasure, Ryder takes it he isn’t the biggest bug fan Andromeda has to offer.

“Yeah, they’re these tiny little bio-luminescent bugs that we had on Earth. Have, on Earth, I guess,” a pause, “When the weather gets warm, they all come out at dusk and blink their lights at each other- I think to attract mates or something. I dunno. Their own bug binary code,” He sighs, lacing his hands behind his head and leaning back, blinking slowly. “Sara and I would go out right as the sun set to catch them. That’s how you knew it was summer, really-- that and the cicadas.”

“Cicadas?” Kallo asks, and Ryder laughs.

“They’re pretty cool,” he says, closing his eyes, “They lay their eggs underground, and the babies spend, like, sixteen years or something growing. A long time, I don’t know the specifics. When they come out, in the summer, they make a lot of noise-- well, then they die, a few weeks later, after they lay their eggs.”

“I- _sixteen years?”_ Kallo asks, and Ryder can hear his aghast expression, “Did I hear you right?”

Ryder laughs at his stupefaction, and Kallo smiles despite himself, laughing as well, and Ryder loves how easy it is to infect Kallo with laughter, thinks about how he’d laugh til his lungs gave out if it meant Kallo was laughing with him.

“Kind of like us, aren’t they,” Kallo muses, leaning back to lay down as well. Ryder isn’t sure if it’s intentional, or perhaps a miscalculation of distance on Kallo’s behalf when the salarian pillows his head against Ryder’s folded arms. “If they slept for six hundred years, rather than sixteen.”

For the first time, Ryder wonders how good salarian hearing is, wonders if at this distance Kallo can hear how fast his heart is beating.

“We _have_ done an awful lot of noise-making since we woke up, haven’t we?” Ryder says, and Kallo makes that little noise somewhere between a hum and a giggle that without fail makes Ryder’s heart melt,

“That we have. Though, I think we’ve done _considerably_ less egg-laying since then!”

“I guess we don’t make very good cicadas,” Ryder hums, content, memories of summer nights and the light from jars of fireflies casting odd shadows on his hands playing behind his eyelids, accompanied only by the quiet thrum of the Tempest and he and Kallo’s breathing.

Ryder opens his eyes when Kallo shifts, moving to lay on his side, and when Ryder turns to face him he realizes just how close they were. Ryder felt his face grow hot, the intimacy of the situation dawning on him, and he wondered if salarians could blush. He wondered if this meant anything to Kallo at all-- he knew that salarians had a wildly different concept of romance and intimacy than he was familiar with, and--

As if sensing the cogs turning inside Ryder’s head, Kallo laughs (and Ryder once more wonders if the pilot can hear his hammering heartbeat), leaning closer, resting a hand on the side of Ryder’s face, eyes drifting closed as he brought their foreheads together. Ryder smiled at that, chuckling quietly once more, turning his head to press a kiss to the inside of Kallo’s hand. In an instant, a hundred doubts flashed through his mind- was he being too forward? Would Kallo even care at all?

He took the smile that spread across the other’s face as his answer.

 


End file.
